Climb Sydney Harbour Bridge with a professional Climb Leader for a high-level view across the harbour. The guided ascent reaches approximately 134 metres above the water.

From the bridge, take in the scale of the harbour and the city spread around it. The structured climb turns a familiar Sydney landmark into a hands-on experience; participation is subject to the operator’s requirements. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Ride the historic railway to Kuranda, winding over bridges and through tunnels into the rainforest. Explore the village’s arts and crafts before travelling above the canopy on the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway.

The two journeys offer contrasting views of Far North Queensland’s tropical landscape: one from a heritage rail route, the other from high over the trees. This Kuranda experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Watch little penguins return to shore at Phillip Island’s Penguin Parade. This optional outing from Melbourne lets you observe the small seabirds as they emerge from the sea and head towards their burrows.

The nightly movement is a distinctive wildlife encounter on Victoria’s coast, with the penguins’ natural behaviour at the centre of the experience. This excursion is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Cruise the Melaleuca wetlands at Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures for a chance to observe saltwater crocodiles in a wetland setting. The visit offers a wildlife-focused addition to a Kuranda outing from Cairns.

Seeing the waterways by boat brings you closer to the habitat associated with one of northern Australia’s most formidable animals. This excursion can be paired with the Kuranda experience and is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Explore the Hobbiton Movie Set on a guided tour through its 12-acre landscape near Matamata. See the carefully built hobbit holes and enjoy opportunities to photograph the details that brought the fictional Shire to the screen.

Set among the rolling Waikato hills, the movie set pairs film craftsmanship with a pastoral New Zealand backdrop. Your guide helps reveal how an ordinary farm became a recognisable world of paths, gardens and hobbit-sized homes.

Meet your Travel Director and fellow travellers over a welcome dinner at a restaurant on Melbourne’s South Wharf. Set beside the Yarra River, the waterfront offers a relaxed introduction to the city’s dining scene.

Enjoy conversation over dinner as the lights come on along the river. South Wharf’s former port setting gives this gathering a distinctly Melbourne backdrop, balancing the city’s industrial heritage with its contemporary food culture.

Watch the setting sun change the colours of Uluru while enjoying sparkling wine and nibbles in the red desert landscape. Spinifex grasses and open sky frame your first close view of the sandstone monolith in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.

The light can shift from ochre to deep red and purple within minutes. Uluru is a place of profound cultural significance to its Anangu custodians, making this more than a scenic sundowner.

Explore the Sydney Opera House with a Local Specialist and discover the story behind the building’s distinctive roof forms. A guided visit reveals how this performing-arts venue became an internationally recognised symbol of Australia.

Learn about the ambition and challenges involved in creating Jørn Utzon’s design. Set on Bennelong Point beside Sydney Harbour, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed building rewards attention to both its architecture and its waterside position.

Cruise Sydney Harbour over lunch, enjoying views of its waterfront landmarks from the water. A menu focused on local food and wine accompanies the passage through one of the world’s best-known natural harbours.

From the deck, the city’s architecture, shoreline and busy waterways form a panorama that feels different from a land-based tour. This included cruise combines sightseeing with the simple pleasure of lingering over a meal afloat.

Visit Sydney’s Bondi Beach and feel the sand underfoot at one of Australia’s most recognisable stretches of coast. There is time to wander the promenade, look into surf shops or settle at a sidewalk café.

Bondi’s broad curve of sand and lively beachfront offer a glimpse of Sydney’s outdoor culture. Watch the surf and the changing activity along the shore while exploring this seaside neighbourhood at your own pace.

Join a Local Specialist at the Art Gallery of New South Wales for a guided introduction to First Nations and Australian art. Explore how artists express connections to land, story and identity through their work.

The gallery provides a setting for looking beyond Sydney’s harbour icons and engaging with the country’s creative voices. Your guide’s insights help place individual works in cultural context and invite a closer look at the ideas they carry.

Dine at the historic Postmasters Cottage in Arrowtown with your Travel Director and fellow travellers. Stroll the grounds before enjoying a dinner focused on fresh local food and wine.

Built in 1907, the cottage was saved from demolition through local community effort and later restored, including its verandas and gardens. Its story lends the evening a personal connection to Arrowtown’s heritage beyond the meal itself.

Join a guided stargazing experience in the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve near Lake Tekapo. With a Local Specialist, look for the Southern Cross, the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds, and use a powerful optical telescope for a closer view.

Protected dark skies make this region particularly suited to observing the southern night sky. Your guide helps turn a field of bright points into recognisable celestial features; visibility depends on the weather.

Discover Christchurch’s central landmarks, including views of the Canterbury Museum, the Christchurch Earthquake Memorial and the Bridge of Remembrance. See the temporary cathedral in Latimer Square, widely known as the Cardboard Cathedral.

Notice its colourful stained glass and construction incorporating cardboard tubes. Created following the 2011 earthquake, the cathedral offers a visible example of the city’s rebuilding, while the memorial and older landmarks speak to different chapters of Christchurch’s history.

Meet the Bamford family at Hurunui Hills, a working hill-country farm in North Canterbury. See Merino sheep and Angus cattle grazing, and learn what it takes to produce wool and raise livestock in this landscape.

The family has farmed in Hurunui since 1884, giving this Be My Guest experience a connection across six generations. Warm local hospitality and time among the animals offer an insight into rural New Zealand life.

Travel the Great Ocean Road for coastal views and a visit to the Twelve Apostles. See limestone stacks rising from the Southern Ocean, pause for photographs along the route and spend time in the seaside town of Apollo Bay.

Learn how erosion shaped the coast’s dramatic rock formations. The drive’s combination of surf, cliffs and changing viewpoints makes this a substantial nature-focused outing from Melbourne. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Explore Melbourne on a History and Donuts Walking Tour, combining a guided look at the city on foot with a distinctly sweet theme. It offers an alternative way to experience Melbourne beyond its main sightseeing routes.

Walking makes space to notice the streetscape and hear stories connected to the places you pass, while the donut stops add a taste of the city’s food culture. This optional experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Walk through Bruce Munro’s Field of Light before dawn, surrounded by changing colours from the illuminated installation with Uluru in the distance. Watch the light shift as the desert approaches sunrise.

The experience concludes at a sand-dune viewpoint, where you can take in the awakening landscape with coffee or tea. Art and natural light create two contrasting ways of seeing the Red Centre. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Float above the Atherton Tablelands on an optional hot-air balloon flight from the Cairns region. The elevated perspective reveals the contours and changing scenery of this tropical hinterland.

Ballooning replaces the pace of the road with a quiet, open-air view, offering a different way to appreciate Far North Queensland’s landscape. Flights depend on suitable weather and operating conditions. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Meet Australian wildlife at Sydney Zoo, where animals highlighted on this outing include wombats, Tasmanian devils and koalas. Continue to the Blue Mountains to see the Three Sisters rock formation and take in the mountain scenery.

Hear the Aboriginal legend associated with the Three Sisters while looking out across a landscape often softened by a blue eucalypt haze. This combined wildlife and scenery excursion is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Ride the Skippers Jet boat through the cliffs and gorges near Queenstown. This optional water-based outing offers a faster-paced way to encounter the region’s rugged terrain.

The contrast between the narrow waterways and steep rock faces is central to the experience, giving you a close perspective on scenery that feels remote from the town’s lakeside streets. The ride is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Cruise Lake Wakatipu aboard the TSS Earnslaw, a historic steamship, to Walter Peak High Country Farm. Enjoy lake and mountain views before taking a farm tour with morning or afternoon tea.

The voyage and visit bring together two strands of Queenstown’s heritage: travel by steamer and high-country farming. Time at Walter Peak offers a calmer counterpoint to the region’s adventure activities. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Walk Melbourne’s central streets with your Travel Director, taking in Victorian facades, historic arcades and narrow laneways filled with street art. The route offers a close-up look at the details that give the city its character.

Notice how grand nineteenth-century architecture sits alongside murals and small cafés. The scent of freshly ground coffee is part of the experience: Melbourne’s laneways are gathering places as much as shortcuts through the city.

See dawn illuminate Uluru from within the national park, with hot cocoa in hand as the desert emerges from darkness. Explore part of the rock’s base with your Travel Director and look for ancient rock art.

Hear stories about the Anangu, the traditional custodians whose knowledge and connection to this landscape continue today. Seeing the rock art and its setting together brings a deeper perspective to Uluru’s cultural importance.

Meet an Anangu artist at Walkatjara Art Uluru for an introduction to Western Desert art. Learn about symbols and totems important to the region, and try creating a work of your own.

The experience connects paintings and installations with the stories and cultural knowledge they can express. Hearing directly from an artist offers a more thoughtful way to engage with this living tradition, while the visit supports the local Indigenous arts community.

Walk between the towering domes of Kata Tjuta through Walpa Gorge to a lookout. Its name means “wind” in the local language, and the sheltered passage reveals a different side of the Red Centre’s rocky landscape.

Enjoy sparkling wine as sunset brings out the domes’ warm tones. Kata Tjuta, like Uluru, holds deep significance for the Anangu; its scale and relative quiet make the experience especially striking.

Cruise by high-speed catamaran to the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns. Explore the reef with provided mask and fins, or stay dry aboard a semi-submersible craft to watch fish and coral beneath the surface.

A local guide explains the ecology of this UNESCO World Heritage-listed reef system and the importance of protecting it. A tropical buffet lunch is served on board, giving you time to take in the open-water setting.

Discover New Zealand rugby at the All Blacks Experience in Auckland. This interactive, guided attraction uses technology and storytelling to introduce the national team and the game’s place in New Zealand life.

Learn why the All Blacks command such attention at home and abroad. Rather than simply displaying sporting memorabilia, the experience explores the preparation, pride and shared emotion surrounding rugby in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Discover Auckland’s waterfront and volcanic setting on a city sightseeing tour. View Mission Bay, Bastion Point and the Michael Joseph Savage Memorial, with its gardens and outlook across Waitemata Harbour towards the North Shore.

Pass Auckland Museum on Pukekawa, a volcanic hill associated with earlier tribal battles. Together, these sights show how the City of Sails is shaped by its harbours, elevated viewpoints and layered history.

Tour the National Kiwi Hatchery Aotearoa with a Local Specialist in Rotorua. Learn how conservation staff incubate eggs and care for chicks as part of efforts to help protect New Zealand’s national bird.

See the hatchery’s work up close and, depending on activity during your visit, you may observe eggs or newly hatched chicks. This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® experience connects an encounter with a rare native species to the practical work behind its survival.

Cruise the waters of Piopiotahi/Milford Sound beneath steep mountain walls, with views towards Mitre Peak and Bowen Falls. The journey into Fiordland also takes in scenery around Mirror Lakes, the Cleddau Valley and the Homer Tunnel.

Carved by glaciers, the fiord is known for its sheer cliffs and waterfalls. Seeing this landscape from both the mountain route and the water reveals the immense scale of New Zealand’s southwest wilderness.

Taste Central Otago stone fruit at Mrs. Jones’ Fruit Stall near Cromwell, where seasonal produce may include apricots, nectarines, peaches and plums. Visit the Highlands Museum to see a collection that includes rare cars from New Zealand motorsport history.

These two stops reveal different sides of the region: its fruit-growing landscape and its enthusiasm for motoring. The tasting depends on what is in season, while the museum offers a closer look at distinctive machines and hidden gems.

Visit the grounds of the Church of the Good Shepherd beside Lake Tekapo and see the nearby bronze sheepdog statue. The small stone church stands against a backdrop of lake water and South Island mountains.

Built in the 1930s as a memorial to the pioneers of the Mackenzie region, the church reflects the area’s pastoral history. Its modest scale and lakeside position make it a rewarding place to pause and take in the landscape.

Taste wine at Waipara Springs Winery and enjoy a platter-style lunch among the vines. This hosted visit offers time to pause in the Waipara wine region and sample its produce.

North Canterbury’s vineyards are set among rolling country north of Christchurch. Sharing a tasting and lunch at the winery brings a flavour of the region into focus, complementing the tour’s encounters with its farms and landscapes.

Gather for a farewell dinner with your Travel Director and fellow travellers in Christchurch. Raise a glass together over a meal showcasing food from the Canterbury region.

The shared table is an opportunity to exchange favourite moments from Australia and New Zealand, from desert landscapes to southern fiords. Its regional menu gives the final hosted evening a local focus rather than making it simply a routine hotel dinner.

Dine at an Uluru BBQ dinner beneath the Outback night sky. Watch the desert colours fade at sunset and listen to an informative star talk as darkness reveals the southern sky.

With Uluru nearby, the setting gives this meal a sense of place that extends well beyond the table. Clear skies can make the constellations especially vivid, although viewing is weather-dependent. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Learn traditional hunting and gathering skills on an optional outing in the Daintree region. Search for bush tucker such as mud crabs, fish and mussels, with the chance to taste and share the catch.

A guided interpretive walk introduces the surrounding rainforest and deepens the connection between food, place and local knowledge. Conditions and what can be found will vary naturally. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Experience Te Po at Te Puia in Rotorua through a guided introduction to Maori history and culture. Watch a cultural performance in the carved meeting house Te Aronui a Rua and view the geothermal activity of Pohutu Geyser.

Enjoy a dinner featuring hangi-inspired cuisine. The combination of performance, food and the active geothermal landscape gives this hosted evening a strong sense of place, rooted in Rotorua’s cultural heritage.